Civil rights: Susan B. Anthony

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Civil rights mini-series, episode 20) is a short documentary about Susan B. Anthony, an American teacher who was arrested in November 1872 because she voted, at a time when American women were not allowed to vote. A single narrator tells her story: her work for women's rights with her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton, her vote in Rochester, New York, with fourteen other women, her trial, where the judge told the jury of twelve men to find her guilty, and the fine of one hundred dollars that she never paid. The narrator ends with what changed: in 1920 a change to the Constitution, which many people call the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, gave American women the right to vote, and in 1979 she became the first real woman on an everyday American coin. The narration is in the past simple (regular and irregular verbs, was and were), with passives such as was arrested and were not allowed to and the negative did not let her speak, and its words are about voting, the law and the courts (trial, judge, witness, jury, fine). Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (polling station, Constitution, amendment). The study topic is people who stood up for equal rights: who they were, what they did, what changed.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet with the 10 questions and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Learners should know the past simple of common verbs and be able to read dates such as 1872 and 1920. The pack's key words explain the new words (marshal, polling station, trial, witness, jury).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-school-and-society ("École et société") and c4-encountering-others ("Rencontre avec l'autre"), two Cycle 4 axes. The episode is made for 4e and targets CEFR level A2+.